EXCERPT: “It took a year living with her parents for Amber Blakely to find her current three-bedroom rental in 2010. Rushed to find a new home, she’ll end up paying more for a two-bedroom house come August. ‘I’m a single mother, I have a stable job, I have a college degree, my kids are older and not infants,” said Blakely, 32. “The places I looked at were either expensive or complete slums that weren’t safe for children.’ Welcome to the Duluth rental market. With yearlong waiting lists for subsidized housing and a significant shortage of options for the working class, Duluth’s affordable-housing crunch is hitting residents of all backgrounds. ‘It’s not just about the traditional low-income household. It’s definitely a workforce issue here in Duluth,’ said Lee Stuart, executive director of housing advocate CHUM. ‘I know the lack of housing in Duluth for all income levels is hindering our city’s economic development.’ Despite low rents compared with the rest of the state and country, thousands of Duluthians like Blakely spend a third of their incomes or more on housing, Census data shows, and many are spending over half of their pay on rent.” FULLSTORY: http://bit.ly/2sImqsL

EXCERPT: “ABODO, an apartment listing company, analyzed the 100 largest metropolitan statistical areas by population from the U.S. Census Bureau 2015 American Community Survey to find the highest and lowest percentage of all millennial householders who are owners. Home buying among adults ages 18 to 35 has slowed. In 2005, 39.5% of this age group owned homes. That share fell to 32.1% in 2015 . . . This trend might reverse. Recently, more millennials have been entering the home-buying market. Only time will tell if this trend will stick, but for now, here are the 10 cities millennials are buying homes — and the 10 where they aren’t.” FULLSTORY: https://yhoo.it/2thtTl6